The Robber Bride
by Viola
Summary: Turn back, turn back, you young bride. Expanded Universe, Post-VotF.


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The Robber Bride by Viola

Summary: "Turn back, turn back, you young bride." Star Wars, Expanded Universe. Post VotF. Luke/Mara, implied Karrde/Mara.

There was blood in the morning on that last day.

A prick and a glance and a droplet of blood. It fell onto the fabric, a perfect circle of perfect red, perfectly in the center.

The seamstress kept apologizing, on her hands and knees, picking up the fallen pins. She'd hurt the bride, ruined the dress, everything was spoiled.

"Leave it," Mara said, looking down at the expensive fabric. "It's small. No one will ever see."

They wouldn't, and maybe somewhere down deep inside she liked the idea. What else had she paid for this with if not blood? 

Maybe she should have worn red.

But that would never have done. It would have caused a sensation, of course, and there was still a small, secret part of her that liked to shock. So she had her nails lacquered crimson instead and then hid them under white gloves.

The gloves were awkward, frivolous, made of some shining, slick material that made it impossible for her to hold anything for longer than a heartbeat. When they practiced walking together -- again and again, because it had to be perfectly right -- Luke's hand kept slipping from her grasp.

After awhile though, after practice after practice, she finally got it right. She held on and he didn't fall away. After all this time, all these plans, all the endless, endless obstacles, she was finally going to have this. She doubted anyone thought she'd noticed the obstacles, whether large and small. But she had, every single one.

Of course, the biggest obstacle was one that none of them knew about. She certainly wasn't telling -- and neither was he.

"He's the closest thing I have to family," she'd said weeks back when the issue of who would walk her down the aisle had first come up. She'd bitten back the urge to suggest the long-dead Emperor, because she wasn't that woman anymore, angry and biting. Instead she'd suggested Karrde -- maybe a little defiantly, but not much. "There isn't anyone else."

She'd expected a fight over it. At least a small one, a show of one. But they just smiled and shrugged and said that perhaps a smuggler would bring a little scandal to the proceeding.

If they only knew.

"I'm not your father," he said when she asked him to stand up with her, and there was something about the way he didn't meet her eyes that made hot blood rush to her face.

But in the end, he agreed. Though there was still part of her that wondered whether he'd done it just to make her feel a little properly ashamed. If he had, he was wasting his time. She planned to stand next to him in her white dress and hold his hand and smile. Because she'd earned the right to, and he of all people ought to have understood that.

She was all alone that last night, because it was bad luck for the bride to have visitors, or so they said. Mara had never heard of that tradition before, but she just smiled and nodded as though she'd known it all along. She'd done that a lot these past days, and she wondered whether, if she looked in the mirror, she would see her own face or some quietly smiling mask.

At sunset, a note slipped under her door. She read it once and smiled, folded it and put it under her pillow. She changed and brushed her hair and washed her face, but didn't go to bed. She expected at least one person to ignore propriety entirely, so she stayed awake.

It was midnight before the knock at her door, but she'd known he'd come. After all this time, they understood one another very well. She let him into her room without a thought, sat beside him on the bed and put her chin on his shoulder.

"Perhaps you ought to break yourself of that habit," he said, pulling away from her.

She looked up at him, surprised. In all the lovely newness, the story-ending rightness of it all, she hadn't considered that.

"You're going to leave me then."

He smiled slightly. "I think you're the one leaving me. Don't you?"

"I thought-" she began. "I thought you might tell me not to do it."

"Do you want me to?" he asked with faint humor. "Do you want me to, so then you can you hold your head up bravely and tell me how you love him? How he's so noble and how you deserve happiness after so long? Because I will, if you need to hear it."

"Do you think I don't deserve it? After everything? I've fought so hard. I ought to have some sort of reward." She leaned closer, looking into his eyes. "I've done all the right things."

"You certainly aren't the creature you were when we met."

"I was a foolish child, a wild thing."

"I loved you better then."

But he would wish her happiness anyway. She knew it, she knew him. She asked him to.

"It will be... very safe," he said, instead. "And isn't that what you were looking for?"

In another life she would have hurt him for that.

"I think you're just a little jealous," she said.

"I let you go a long time ago, Mara. Surely you noticed?"

"Is that what that was?" she said, somehow feeling vaguely bitter.

"All I ever wanted was for you to finally be happy."

"Not all." She folded her arms across her chest and turned slightly away from him.

"Perhaps not all," he admitted with a smile.

"It's a bit late for this conversation now, isn't it?" she said, suddenly wishing he hadn't come.

"I suppose it might be," he said. "But would you have let me say it before?"

"I've made my choice." She had, and she was resolved.

"I know you have." _But it isn't the only way_, he didn't say, and stood up instead. "I'll see you in the morning then." 

He moved to go. She followed.

"Yes. Yes, you will," she said, and closed the door behind him.

* The title comes from Margaret Atwood's novel of the same name. The quote in the summary is taken from The Grimm's version of 'The Robber Bridegroom.' I don't take any credit for the white dress or the giving away of the bride or any of the other Earth-centric wedding trappings. For those, blame Tim Zahn and Mike Stackpole. Because, yeah. 


End file.
